No Time To Grieve
by Atawalpa
Summary: After the adrenalin dies, the pain hits home like an iron bar.' Harrypointofview. Last Battle Death Fic. Slight HarryDraco. Written before book 6. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: Blah blah blah. Don't own Harry Potter and all that. I do however own my teeth.

A/N: I did write this just before the sixth book came out and I'm afraid it hasn't been beta'd so you'll have to bear with any bad grammar or spelling. Yeah, I was feeling depressed when I wrote this and sitting and writing about someone else dying is (apparently) better than me dying. Some of you might think that Harry's being a bit selfish, bollocks I say. He has every reason to be so angry.

After the adrenalin dies, the pain hits home like an iron bar.

The only thing running through the red haze of my mind is; _it's over, it's finally over._

After all that planning, the training, the getting up before dawn, the huge build up, the wait. It all came down to one single anti-climatic moment.

My whole life had been for that one simple second. And now it was over.

My eyes slid sideways to look across the floor, which is strange in itself because I had been positive I was standing.

The body of my long time nemesis looks pitifully small. Why wasn't I happy to see him gone? No more people would be murdered for a selfish vendetta. The darkness hanging over so many had now been pulled back, so they could live without having to look over their shoulders.

Isn't that something to be happy about?

I just feel unbelievably tired.

I try to lift my arm to look at my watch. I've got no idea how long I've been in this blasted room.

I can't lift it.

Not ten minutes ago - I think – I was tearing down the corridor outside, and now I can't even lift my own arm, such poetic justice.

You know, prophecies are a load of bull. '_Neither can live while the other survives'_ yeah that is right I suppose. Voldie was a bit obsessive over me. You'd think that over the years he might have just come to the conclusion to just leave me alone, then my suicidal luck might have run out and I may have died naturally, falling off my broom for example. But noooo, with him it was always Harry Potter, Harry Potter.

And as for me, people didn't _let_ me have a life to live. Just once I would have liked to have got through _one _week without someone bringing up Voldemort, Death Eaters or fulfilling my bloody destiny. Every time I tried to step out of the role of The-Boy-Who-Lived, someone was there to force the mask back on. Even my best friends; it got to the point where I had to be Harry Potter around even them, not, simply Harry. They wouldn't _let_ me be Harry. Whenever I tried, Ron would ask me if I was ill, and then try to drag me off to the hospital wing, saying I couldn't be sick for the final battle. And Hermione would start rambling about the Death Eater hot spots, the next Order of the Phoenix meeting or something else that I shouldn't have had to have dealt with.

Urg, my eyes are going fuzzy. Again strange, because Moody had me fix my eyes. He kept saying that my glasses were my biggest weakness. "_Little spell to knock 'em off, and you're finished Potter,_" he'd said.

Looks like dear little Voldie must have been having a bottle of red wine before I so rudely arrived, and he spilled it, aww what a shame. But why do I have to be lying right in the middle of it?

What was I saying? On yeah, prophecies; going on and on about only one of us walking away, but prophecies really are spiteful little bastards. Yeah, I walked away, all of twelve feet.

So I just thought '_to hell with it!'_ For once I wanted to make a decision that was entirely my own. So I walked out of the castle and down to Hogsmead, apperated here, blasted the five Death Eaters that got in my way, walked in here and caught him off guard. Apparently not quite off guard enough because he managed to get off a couple of nasty hexes before I downed him. I didn't even feel them. I sure as hell feel them now.

I can hear shouting down the corridor, looks like the cavalry's arrived. Ha, you're too late.

Odd, everything else is giving up on me; my vision's swimming like the fricken sea, I can barely lift a finger, and I don't think I could speak if someone told me they were going to drop a nuclear warhead on England, and to stop it all I had to do was say 'fuck.' But my hearing is crystal clear.

I guess all sorts of weird things happen when you die.

Yep, I've joined the dots people. I'm dying.

The doors bang open so hard they must've stuck in the bloody walls. There's the expected silence and then a tidal wave of noise. I think my ear drums are going to burst!

"Harry!"

"Oh my God-"

"Shit."

"Voldemort's dead-"

"Get the healers-"

"What the hell-"

"Harry!"

Well here they are.

The first two that pop into my line of - fading – vision, are predictably, Ron and Hermione.

They look pale. What, it never hit them that I couldn't possibly walk away from this?

Looking over their shoulders I can see all of the Weasleys – even Percy! All of the DA were there and what looked like all of the Order too, oh and Blaize Zabine, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Pansy Parkinson and the one and only Draco Malfoy. Yeah, I know what you're thinking about the last five, but they came over to our side halfway through sixth year, and have been damn good spies ever since. I actually became really good friends with the Slytherin six (come on now, don't tell me you forgot Severus Snape) because they had no glittering illusions about me. They knew that this war would kill me, and most likely them too, so we made the most of it and put aside our petty rivalries. I think they are the only ones I'm really going to regret leaving behind.

Everyone had a defeated look to them as they take in my ruined body.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione sniffs.

"Just hang on mate," Ron whispers, "you'll be fine."

But I know I won't be, and in my broken chest I feel a sad bitterness. I want to grieve for my controlled life, but I don't have the time anymore. A life I'd never lived as myself. Ever. What a waste. If they had just let me be Harry, I wouldn't be lying here now, in a growing pool of my own blood.

Just once I had wanted not to have the weight of the world on my shoulders. Just once I had wanted to be a normal seventeen year old boy, worrying about ordinary things, not planning a war.

I'm sorry guys, but you made me like this, not me, so now you have to deal with the consequences.

I can't forgive you all just yet.

I can't see anymore, nor feel. I can only hear.

I hear the healers rush into the room. I hear Ron and Hermione babbling to them. I can hear damn near every female in the room, and probably some of the males too, sobbing their hearts out.

I must have shaken my head, because I hear them all gasp.

"Harry! Now don't be silly," I can hear McGonagall snap.

"Listen to her Harry, if you don't let the healers help you you'll die. Do you want that?" Dumbeldore coaxed.

What? So if I live, the world can put me back on that lonely pedestal and tell me how to live my life? So you can? No, this ends here, I can't do this anymore. You've all taken everything I've had to give and left me empty. I've. Had. Enough.

I must have nodded because now there's only a deep silence.

"What-" Dumbeldore began.

"Shut up, Albus," Snape snaps, and even though his voice is grating with unshed tears he recognises what I want, it's probably what he wants too, and he wills me to have it. Thank you, Sev.

"But-" Ron croaks out.

"Let him be," a cool voice I know all too well over rides him. And it's the voice I know I will miss the most out of the dear six who I came to care for like a family.

"Shut your mouth, Malfoy!"

"No, I will not, Weasley. He deserves to make his own choice for _once_ in his life. _Let him make his own bloody choice_!"

I knew that the six would understand, especially him and Sev, for they're all the same as me. After all Sev's first real choice was when he decided to accept my hand of friendship and the others was when they decided to come over to our side.

Even the pain had gone now.

I smiled, and it must have showed, because I finally heard Draco give a soft laugh.

"I'll be seeing you, Harry."

I can't forgive the others. But I can forgive you Draco, Sev, Blaize, Pansy, Vincent and Greg.

And I let myself drift away.

Truly free, at last.

END


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